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July 1996] 


Notes on the Career of the Somnambule Leonie 


NOTES ON THE CAREER OF THE SOMNAMBULE LEONIE 

by Alan Gauld 
ABSTRACT 

This article sketches the career (of which many aspects remain obscure) of the 
celebrated late -nineteenth-century French multiple-personality subject Leonie 
(Madame B.). Leonie is of historical interest and importance for her apparent 
success in experiments on telepathic hypnosis and clairvoyant card-guessing, for 
her influence on the dissociationisms of Pierre Janet and of F. W. H. Myers, and 
for the role which she played in controversies surrounding the Dreyfus case. 


Introduction 

One of the best known and most influential of the early cases of multiple 
personality was that of the lady known as ‘Madame B.* or (more often) as 
‘Leonie’. Her influence on psychopathological and psychological thinking was 
scarcely less than that of Felida X. and Louis Vive (on whom see Hacking, 
1995), and on psychical research it was much greater. But although she was 
investigated by several leading psychologists and psychical researchers (e.g. 
Janet, Myers, Richet), and impinged on psychology, psychical research and 
even public affairs in ways to which we shall come, she remained until quite 
recently a somewhat shadowy figure, and different aspects of her career had 
not been publicly brought together. 

Leonie first became known outside her own locality, and to the academic 
world at large, in 1886, when Pierre Janet, at that time professor of philosophy 
at the Lycee of Le Havre, published two articles in the Revue philo sop hique 
(Janet, 1886b; 1886c) describing some apparently successful experiments 
with her on the induction of hypnosis at a distance. Janet’s articles caused 
some stir, and prompted investigations of Leonie by other savants. 

In his Revue philo sophique articles of 1886, Janet describes Leonie as an 
honest country-woman, and adds that, so far as is known, she has always 
enjoyed excellent health, except that since infancy she has been subject to 
attacks of natural somnambulism, during which she can talk and describe 
the remarkable hallucinations she seems to undergo. In later publications he 
modifies these statements considerably. Though he never questions Leonie’s 
honesty and simplicity in her normal state, he now notes (Janet, 1888,p.241n) 
that there is epilepsy and insanity in her family. She herself was afflicted in 
childhood with the most serious hysterical symptoms, which were modified 
by an animal-magnetic doctor into a “remarkable magnetic somnambulism’’. 
However, the menopause, through which she has recently (1888) passed, has 
brought a return of the hysterical symptoms, with violent crises, contractures, 
anaesthesia of the left side, and nervous asthma. 

Janet always maintained strict secrecy as to the real names of his subjects 
and patients, and the late Dr E. J. Dingwall, who wrote at some length about 
Leonie, tried hard but unsuccessfully to solve the question of her identity. 
However Charles Richet was not quite so discreet as Janet, and in his memoirs 


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(Richet, 1933, p.66) says that her surname was ‘Leboulanger’. From Janet’s 
own later writings (Janet, 1925, I, 189-192), from incidental references by 
other writers, and from the researches of recent scholars — most notably 
Jacqueline Carroy (Carroy, 1991; Carroy &: Plas, 1995), to whom I am further 
indebted for unpublished information —it is now possible to put together a 
fuller, though still very incomplete, account of her career. 

Leonie was born in 1837 in Calvados, the child of domestic servants in a 
wealthy household. A natural somnambule from childhood, she developed 
at about the age of sixteen the hysterical symptoms referred to above. She 
was treated by various mesmerists, of whom the most notable was Dr 
Alfred Perrier, of Caen. Perrier, an occasional contributor to the Journal du 
magnetisme, was locally well known. He seems to have developed in her 
a state of ‘artificial’ somnambulism beneficial to her hysterical symptoms. 
But he may also have shaped the form of this ‘somnambulism’ according to 
certain preconceptions of his own, to which we shall return, and he seems in 
addition to have used her to demonstrate some of the more theatrical sides of 
somnambulism, for instance dramatic role-playing (see, for example, Janet, 
1889, pp. 162 -163). Before long Leonie became known around Caen for the 
clairvoyant gifts which she seemed sometimes to exercise in the clairvoyant 
state. Word of these gifts reached Madame Mathilde Frigard of Caen, a ruthless 
and scheming woman whose sights had become set on the treasures supposedly 
concealed in the Chateau of Crevecoeur-en-Auge some 30 km from Caen. 
Madame Frigard persuaded Leonie, whose magnetizer she became, to stay at 
the Chateau and take part in the treasure-hunt. For many months during 1864 
Leonie, and another clairvoyant, Madame Thiebaut of Paris, had visions of 
the treasure’s location, and some encouraging discoveries were made. But the 
treasure was never found, and all ended disastrously (see Ba'issas, 1992, which 
is a prime source of early information about Leonie). Madame Frigard’s 
relentless greed shortly afterwards led her to commit a murder, for which she 
was tried and convicted (see The Times, 10th-15th August 1867). 

By the time of the treasure -hunt Leonie had married and had children. Her 
husband, whom Myers later described as a charcoal-burner from the vicinity 
of Cherbourg (Myers, 1888-9, p.374), was a certain Jules Frangoise, but 
Leonie seems to have continued to use the surname ‘LeBoulanger’ (or 
‘Boulanger’ or ‘Boulenger’) when acting as a clairvoyant somnambule. She 
remained locally famous in that capacity, and at some unknown place and 
time her path crossed that of Dr Joseph Gibert (1829-1899), a prominent 
physician of Le Havre (for materials concerning Gibert, see Carroy Sc Plas, 
1995, pp. 3 9n-40n). Gibert was an idealist and philanthropist of unquenchable 
zeal and total sincerity, tireless in promoting health and hygiene for the poor. 
As a Protestant and a Republican, and a passionate defender of justice and 
liberty, he became involved in public affairs on a local and national level. 

Gibert was keenly interested in the old animal magnetism and the new 
hypnotism, to such an extent, indeed, that he was called the ‘Charcot of 
Normandy’. Among his subjects was Leonie. In the course of his experiments 
with her she several times spontaneously came out with pieces of factual 
information which he did not know but which on investigation turned out to 
be correct (Dreyfus, 1978, p. 48). 


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In 1883, Pierre Janet came to Havre to take up his appointment as professor 
of philosophy, and began to collect materials for the doctoral dissertation that 
was later published as L’automatisme psychologique (1889). Through the 
good offices of two local medical men, one of whom was Gibert, Janet was 
enabled to study a number of highly hypnotizable hysterical subjects, amongst 
whom the most influential on the development of his ideas was Leonie. 
Indeed Leonie’s influence on Janet and on Gibert, and on others associated 
with them, gains her a place of some significance in the histories of psychical 
research and of psychopathology; and for a few months towards the end of 
the century it brought her an unenviable national notoriety in the political 
battles then convulsing France. I shall touch on each of these areas in turn. 

Leonie and Psychical Research 

Leonie’s importance in the early history of psychical research hinges on the 
experiments on telepathic hypnosis conducted with her by Janet and Gibert 
in 1885, and subsequently by various members of the Society for Psychical 
Research, including Richet. These experiments are extensively discussed by 
Dingwall (1967, pp.264-273;cf. Podmore, 1894, pp. 100-112; Myers, 1903,1, 
pp. 524-529), and do not require extended notice for present purposes. They 
were prompted by the observation that success in inducing her to execute 
hypnotic commands was heavily dependent on the degree of concentration 
achieved by the hypnotist. Leonie came to Havre, where she stayed with 
Gibert’s sister, specially to take part in the experiments. The first two series- 
in October 1885 and February -March 1886— were conducted by Janet and 
Gibert. Publication of the early results in the Revue philo sophique (Janet, 
1886b; 1886c) aroused a good deal of interest, and led to a third series in 
April-May 1886, in which various other savants —Paul Janet, Jules Janet, 
F. W. H. Myers, A. T. Myers, J. Ochorowicz and L. Marillier —participated 
(Myers, 1885 -87b, pp. 13 1-137). The experiments were all of a similar kind. 
At a time previously agreed upon by the experimenters, the hypnotists— in 
all cases either Gibert or Janet— would strongly will the distant Leonie (distant 
anything from a quarter of a mile to a mile) to fall asleep, and sometimes also 
to carry out a further action, such as coming to the hypnotist’s house. Over 
the three series of experiments, 18 out of 25 trials were classified as successes, 
in that Leonie fell asleep within a few minutes of being willed to do so. The 
experimenters were well aware of the risk that they might involuntarily give 
her cues as to their intentions, and of the need to carry out the trials at 
irregular and unpredictable intervals. Whether they wholly succeeded in 
avoiding these and other pitfalls is not within the scope of this article to 
determine. Some further experiments by Janet alone in the autumn of 1886 
had a somewhat less striking success rate (Richet, 1888-89, pp. 43-45). So 
far as I know he did not thereafter undertake any further experiments in 
telepathy, or even discuss his early involvement with the question. 

Another person whose interest was aroused by the publication of the initial 
results was the distinguished physiologist Charles Richet, already a member 
of the SPR and a contributor to its Proceedings. He had the opportunity 
of experimenting on telepathic hypnotism with Leonie while the latter was 
staying at the house of M. H. Ferrari in Paris during December 1886 and 


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January 1887. Results were quite impressive (Richet, 1887-88a; 1887-88b; 
1888-89, pp.32-42). A further series of experiments under the same 
conditions in December 1887 and January 1888 was largely unsuccessful, 
which Richet attributed to his own preoccupation with other matters (Richet, 

1888- 89, pp. 45-47). 

Later in 1888, Leonie spent two and a half months (29th June-1 1th 
September) at Richet’s own house in Paris, where he conducted experiments 
in card guessing with her (he was a pioneer in the application of statistical 
methods to card-guessing experiments). The hypnotized Leonie was required 
to guess the identity of playing cards in sealed envelopes (later, in two sealed 
envelopes) which she was given to hold. She frequently took many hours over 
a single guess — Richet (who was himself ignorant of the identity of the cards) 
says “I have frequently sat by her side from 8 p.m. till 6 a.m.” Out of 68 
trials, Leonie guessed the card correctly in 12, the suit in 36 and the colour in 
45 (Richet, 1889-90, pp. 66-78). However in two further series of experiments, 
one at Myers’s house in Cambridge, to which Richet took her in January - 
February 1889, and the other in Richet’s Paris house in July -August, results 
sank to chance level or very nearly (Richet, 1889 -90, pp. 78 -81). 

In addition to her apparent successes as an experimental subject, the 
entranced Leonie manifested occasional examples of apparent spontaneous 
clairvoyance. Only a few of these are in print. The most interesting took place 
on 2nd July 1888, at 8.00 p.m. Richet had just hypnotized Leonie, and 
suddenly asked her “What has happened to M. Langlois?” Leonie replied that 
he had burned his left hand with a brown liquid. This was absolutely correct. 
At 4.00 p.m. that afternoon M. Langlois (Richet’s assistant, known to Leonie) 
had burned his left hand in the physiological laboratory with bromine. Richet 
adds “I need not say that Leonie had not left my house, nor seen anyone 
from my laboratory. Of this I am absolutely certain, and I am certain that I 
had not mentioned the incident of the burn to anybody.” (Richet, 1889-90, 
pp.69n-70n; cf., for other examples, Richet, 1888-89, p. 164; Bickford-Smith, 

1889- 90). Such incidents had no doubt been of greater frequency in the 
somnambulic performances which had gained her her original reputation. 
Indeed during a discussion of a paper of Richet’s, read to the Society for 
Psychical Research in 1888, F. W. H. Myers remarked that he had some years 
ago had the opportunity of studying hitherto unpublished records (presumably 
Gibert’s) of some of these occurrences which had taken place at Havre ( JSPR 
Vol. 3, p.347, 1887-88). 

The experiments with Leonie are of modest importance in the history of 
psychical research for three reasons. First, Janet’s accounts of his experiments 
with her, appearing as they did in the Revue philosophique, were important 
landmarks in the academic publication of papers on psychical research and 
generated a fair amount of interest in France and indeed Britain. Second, 
these experiments reinforced the long-established and highly influential 
tradition that mesmeric and hypnotic states (whatever they may be), and 
other altered states of consciousness, facilitate the exercise of telepathic and 
clairvoyant gifts. Third, some of the principal experimenters were either well 
known already in the world of science and medicine, or about to become so. 
Richet, although his Nobel Prize lay in the future, had succeeded to the chair 


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of physiology at the Paris Faculty of Medicine in 1887, and Janet was about to 
begin publication of the series of articles and books that made him (especially 
after the appearance of William James's Principles of Psychology in 1890) 
one of the best known psychologists in the world. That men of such calibre 
had involved themselves in psychical research helped to improve the subject's 
status in the learned world. 

Leonie and Psychopathology 

Janet's most important psychological work was just beginning, and Leonie 
played an important part in its inception. In a series of articles (Janet, 1886 a; 
1886d; 1887 ; 1888; cf. Myers, 1903, 1, pp. 322 -331), and in his L'automatisme 
psychologique (1889), he developed, on the basis of his experiments with 
‘hysterical’ patients, the foundation concepts of his highly influential 
theoretical standpoint. In these hysterical patients, Janet distinguished between 
‘total automatisms’ and ‘partial automatisms’. Total automatisms— for instance 
catalepsy, fugue, somnambulism, alternating personality — involve the whole 
person. Partial automatisms — for instance hysterical limb anaesthesias or 
paralyses, pendulum swinging, dowsing, table-tipping, automatic writing — 
involve mental or psychophysiological elements or systems as it were cut off 
from the main current of conscious life. 

Many partial automatisms are to a greater or lesser extent intelligent, most 
dramatically perhaps in the case of well-developed automatic writing. It is to 
be presumed that some sort of conscious intelligence, sometimes rudimentary, 
sometimes quite complex, must lie behind these automatisms (Janet, 1889, 
p.22). Janet sometimes refers to the more developed examples of such 
intelligences as subconscious or secondary personalities. A subconscious 
secondary personality of this kind exists simultaneously with the main stream 
of consciousness. Janet regards these ‘dissociated’ streams of consciousness 
as resulting from a ‘failure of synthesis’ in the main consciousness due to a 
‘general cerebral exhaustion’ characteristic of hysteria. The main consciousness 
becomes unable to ‘hold together’ or ‘synthesize’ all the elements of conscious 
life at one time, thus occasioning hysterical anaesthesias, shrinkages of sensory 
fields, etc. Sometimes the excluded sensations may become synthesized into 
a second perception, a second psychological existence, and further synthesis 
among the extruded elements may result in a rudimentary or indeed more 
than rudimentary secondary personality (Janet, 1889, p.317) existing so to 
speak alongside the principal personality. 

Janet developed a number of ingenious stratagems for tapping these 
supposed secondary personalities even while the main personality was awake 
and active. There was, for example, the ‘method of distraction’, which he often 
demonstrated with Leonie. This involved distracting the patient’s attention, 
for instance by having an assistant engage her in conversation, and, while she 
was thus occupied, creeping up behind and giving her trivial commands in a 
low voice. Often the subject would obey the command intelligently without 
realizing that she had received it, so indicating the simultaneous existence of 
two dissociated streams of consciousness. 

In Leonie’s case, as in others, the secondary personality thus tapped was 
demonstrably continuous with the consciousness of the ‘somnambulic’ state 


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produced by hypnosis (or rather by mesmerism). The secondary personality 
(which called itself Leontine) would claim responsibility for the bizarre actions 
carried out while the main personality had been distracted. In fact Leontine’s 
memory was altogether wider than Leonie’s, and included a detailed knowledge 
not only of her own actions and experiences but of Leonie’s also. Leonie, 
on the other hand, knew of Leontine’s existence only indirectly through the 
effects of her often somewhat mischievous actions (cf. Myers, 1885 -87a, pp. 
246-251; 1903, 1, pp. 322-326). 

Leonie and Leontine were very different characters (Janet, 1889, pp. 128- 
129; Myers, 1887-88, p.319). Leonie was a quiet, slow, timid, rather dull, 
middle-aged peasant woman, a good Catholic, a good worker about the 
house, absolutely honest and exceedingly loyal to her friends. Leontine was 
altogether livelier (sometimes excessively so), a Protestant, a conversationalist 
who could hold her own with savants, and considerably less suggestible than 
the simple-minded Leonie, for whom she was full of a contempt that could 
take a practical and somewhat spiteful turn. Sometimes Leontine would 
emerge spontaneously, and sometimes too she would manifest her presence by 
surreptitious actions while Leonie held centre stage. 

Leontine’s origins were largely lost in the distant past, when Leonie had 
been treated, or utilized, by mesmeric doctors. Also dating from that era was 
a third personality, Leonore, of whose existence Janet was at first unaware. 
Leonore would emerge when Leontine was in turn subjected to prolonged 
mesmerization. Leonore was a more serious and responsible character than 
Leontine, whom she regarded as a frivolous chatterbox, and would advise or 
warn, and also frighten, by means of an intrusive hallucinatory voice. However 
Richet tells us (Richet, 1889-90, p.77n) that while Leonie and Leontine 
were both absolutely honest, Leonore would sometimes try to cheat in his 
experiments with her. 

Of all Janet’s subjects in this early but formative stage in the development 
of his ideas, Leonie was the one who impressed him most. In 1919 he remarked 
that it was “quite possible that the observation of these states of complete 
somnambulism in Leonie became a motive leading me to make my researches 
on the other patients” (Janet, 1925, p.800). Now Janet’s dissociationist 
approach to the understanding of psychopathological phenomena was for a 
time very influential on his contemporaries, and although for many decades 
thereafter he was eclipsed by Freud, he has of late (and especially since the 
publication in 1970 of Henri Ellenberger's monumental The Discovery of the 
Unconscious) been rising to prominence again. There is a flourishing school 
of modern neo-dissociationists who carry dissociationism well beyond the 
realm of psychopathology, and who look to him as their ancestor (on modern 
dissociationism see for instance Lynn & Rhue, 1994). One might even say that 
distant echoes of Leonie’s influence still linger. 

Janet’s studies of hysterical patients were also very influential on F. W. H. 
Myers (e.g. Myers, 1903, 1, pp.322 -33 1), who had in addition had opportunities 
of observing Leonie for himself. Myers’s theory of the subliminal self has 
strong affinities with Janet’s dissociationism, and was explicitly or implicitly 
adopted as a framework of thought by many psychical researchers until well 
after the middle of the twentieth century. So one might say that Leonie 


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deserves a footnote, or perhaps more than a footnote, in the history of theory 
in psychical research. 

Leonie influenced Janet’s thinking in a further way. Her transition from her 
normal to her somnambulic state (and also her transition from her second to 
her third state) was marked by a period of lethargy in which contraction of 
the arm muscles could be brought about by pressure, and might be transferred 
to the contralateral arm through application of a magnet. Thereafter she would 
pass spontaneously through a series of substages, carefully documented by 
Janet (Janet, 1886d; cf. Myers, 1885-87b, pp. 182-184) into a state of true 
catalepsy in which, with eyes open, suggestions of familiar or habitual actions 
or poses would be carried out automatically. From catalepsy she would move, 
again through various intermediate substages, into lucid somnambulism, and 
from somnambulism, likewise through intermediate stages, back to lethargy. 

In an early paper (Janet, 1886 d), Janet used these observations not exactly 
to cast doubt on the influential claims of Charcot and his school, who held 
that there were three definable stages of grand hypnotisme, lethargy, catalepsy 
and somnambulism, each initiated by certain physical stimuli, but to hint that 
these claims were over-simple and might require modification. Later (Janet, 
1925, I, pp. 187-192) he used them to offer an explanation of how Charcot 
and his followers at the Salpetriere came to be so egregiously misled. Janet 
states that he eventually obtained the notes made by Dr Perrier of Caen, one 
of Leonie’s original mesmerizers, of his sittings with her, and that he also read 
articles contributed by Perrier around the same time to the Journal de mag- 
netisme. He learned that in 1860, and even earlier, Perrier was distinguishing 
phases in the mesmeric sleep of his subjects, and was already characterizing 
them by modifications of sensibility, by cataleptic postures, and by reflex 
contractions induced by various stimuli (Janet, 1925, 1, p. 190). The hypnotic 
phases which he, Janet, had witnessed with Leonie were relics of these earlier 
phases. 

Janet goes on to cite other mesmeric writers of the mid nineteenth century 
who distinguished somewhat comparable phases of the mesmeric state, and 
concludes that “though we do not find a verbatim anticipation of Charcot’s 
teachings in these books on magnetism, we find a sufficient number of the 
elements of that teaching to enable us to affirm that the doctrine of the three 
states and of the physical modifications characteristic of them derives from 
the old theory and practice of animal magnetism” (Janet, 1925, 1, p. 191). 
Janet offers some further speculations about how these doctrines may have 
been introduced into the Salpetriere, and become embodied in the behaviour 
of Charcot’s star subjects. It would, however, take us too far afield to pursue 
the matter further. 

Leonie and the Dreyfus Affair 

The last, least known, and most unlikely aspect of Leonie’s career is her 
emergence as a bit-player in that most notorious of French causes celebres, 
the Dreyfus affair. In 1894 Alfred Dreyfus, a captain in the French army, was 
convicted of selling military secrets to a foreign power, and condemned to life 
imprisonment on Devil’s Island. Dreyfus, who was of Jewish stock, was totally 
innocent and had been framed. There was a strong element of anti-Semitism 


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in the furious controversies that surrounded the case until his final complete 
exoneration in 1906. Gibert, passionate as always in the cause of Truth and 
Justice, quickly became a keen dreyfusard. He had Leonie come to his house 
and held somnambulic seances with her, at which, apparently, he sought to 
obtain clairvoyant information relevant to the case. He also persuaded Alfred’s 
brother, Mathieu Dreyfus (the Dreyfus family, like the family of Gibert’s 
wife, were mill-owners from Mulhouse), a principal campaign organizer, to 
come to Havre for a seance. Leonie gave Mathieu various pieces of correct 
information about his wife and children, and, speaking as though she could 
see Alfred, said in a somewhat puzzled way that he was wearing spectacles. 
Mathieu pointed out that Alfred always wore an eyeglass, but it later transpired 
that he had found it necessary to change to spectacles. 

Mathieu was sufficiently impressed to return to Havre on several further 
occasions, where he received from Leonie (that is, from Leontine) various 
names and pieces of information of definite relevance to the case (Dreyfus, 
1978, pp.48-51). He became interested in hypnosis himself, and was 
instructed by Gibert in the necessary techniques. Leonie then came to stay 
with Mathieu’s sister in Paris. He seems to have carried out, with apparent 
success, experiments resembling those that Richet and Janet had previously 
undertaken with her (Dreyfus, 1978, pp. 64-65). And she continued to 
provide information ostensibly relevant to the case and the campaign, and to 
have clairvoyant visions of the distant Alfred. On one occasion she announced 
that the latter could no longer see the sea— they had constructed a stockade 
around his hut (Carroy 8c Plas, 1995, p.57; Bredin, 1987, pp. 117n-l 18n). 
This, though not known in France at the time, turned out to be correct. It 
seems that Leonie, who had a strong sense of justice, threw herself into the 
work with enthusiasm. 

Gibert was a prominent dreyfusard in his own right, and he became the 
object of some press speculation after Felix Faure became President of the 
Republic in 1895. Faure came from Havre and had been a patient and friend 
of Gibert’s. Rumours spread that he had granted Gibert a private interview and 
had revealed to him a fact of great potential importance to the pro-Dreyfus 
campaign. Not surprisingly the press got wind of Gibert’s seances with Leonie. 
They were first mentioned in print towards the end of 1897; and for three 
months after Gibert’s death in March 1899 they received a good deal of 
publicity in what came to be called V affaire Gibert . (Somewhat surprisingly 
Leonie’s surname does not seem to have found its way into the newspapers.) 
For antidrey fusards the discovery of Gibert’s association with Leonie, and of 
the possible role of her clairvoyant revelations in the campaign, was a boon. 
For drey fusards it was a considerable embarrassment. Some responded by 
emphasizing the serious and scientific nature of Gibert’s work on hypnosis; 
others hinted that the involvement with Leonie was a senile aberration; a few 
even denied her very existence. 

A much more detailed account of Gibert’s and Leonie’s roles in the affair 
is given in a recent, very informative article by Carroy and Plas (1995), who 
are, so far as I know, the first writers to bring together all the aspects of 
Leonie’s career. It is curious that recent historians of the Dreyfus affair (e.g. 
Bredin, 1987, pp. 116 -118), though they deal with the matter of Gibert’s 


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somnambule, have generally speaking not bothered to look further into 
Leonie 's antecedents and her role in Janet’s experiments, a role which was in 
fact clearly spelled out in 1903 by Joseph Reinach in a footnote to his Histoire 
de l’ affaire Dreyfus (Reinach, 1903, p.172). It is even more curious that 
neither Richet (a strongly committed dreyfusard) nor Janet (a more cautious 
one) mentions Leonie’s involvement in the Dreyfus affair, though both of 
them wrote about her long after it was over. 

These brief notes on Leonie’s career are intended simply to outline what is 
currently known about her. A fuller account of her “strange and eventful life” 
(a project which tempted Janet— Janet, 1925, 1, p.189) might present her as 
caught up in, and also reflecting back into and influencing, several interesting 
movements of her time— animal magnetism and its links with French occultism; 
hypnotism and its affiliations with psychopathology; the vogue of multiple 
personality disorder in France; the beginnings of psychical research; the 
political agitation just mentioned. But at the moment the gaps in our know- 
ledge of her career are perhaps too large for such an undertaking. 

Several photographs of Leonie have survived. The best I have seen are 
two taken by Eveleen Myers (F. W. H. Myers's wife) during Leonie’s visit to 
Cambridge. They are reproduced in W. T. Stead’s Real Ghost Stories (Stead, 
1891, pp. 18-19). One is of Leonie, placid and serious, the other of Leontine, 
relaxed, eyes closed, and with an appropriately enigmatic slight smile. 

Department of Psychology 
University of Nottingham 
Nottingham NG7 2RD 


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